Carla Saulter has been living without a car—and using public transit as her primary form of transportation—since March of 2003. Though she gave up driving because of concerns about the detrimental effects of car culture (pollution, traffic, sprawl), the decision has profoundly and positively changed her life. Some of these positive changes include: enforced exercise, time to read, reduced expenses, and contact with her community on a level that would never have been possible in the isolated bubble of a single-occupancy vehicle.

Congratulations to Marvin White (aka “Superman”), Metro’s 2009* Operator of the Year. I missed the big surprise ceremony (again), and that’s unfortunate; I would have liked to have had an opportunity to meet him.
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If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you know that I have many obsessions: libraries, Rosa Parks, Three Girls Bakery, Mount Rainier, and–oh yeah–buses. You might not know, since I have not thus far had occasion to write about it here, that I am also obsessed with August Wilson.
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The SF Muni ladies, who’ve been doing their part to reduce bus fouls in the Bay since ’08, have compiled some of their most popular (or perhaps I should say, most necessary) bus and train behavior recommendations into a book: Muni Manners: An Etiquette Guide for the Mass Transit Savvy. The blurb:
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“Busboy” from Albuquerque hipped me to this blog–and to its author’s recent series about traveling through the Pacific Northwest without a car. I haven’t read the posts about Portland [ahem] or Vancouver yet, but his impressions of the Seattle transit/transportation landscape are pretty spot on. Check it:
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